Companies House Real-Time Data — Live UK Company Intelligence

Live United Kingdom company data for lead generation, due diligence, and risk checks. Describe your ideal customer in one sentence — "active plumbers in Leeds with websites" — or search by industry, company name, or number. Get full company profiles, officers & directors, filing history, charges, insolvency cases, ownership, and public contact details, all streamed to your dataset row by row while the run is still working. Results start appearing in seconds.

⚠️ Free Apify plan notice: Free-tier accounts are limited to 2 results per run. Upgrade to any paid Apify plan for unlimited exports. This is stated here, in the Actor input form, and in the run log — it is a policy limit, not an error.

Who this is for

• B2B sales & lead-gen teams building UK prospect lists by industry, location, or company age
• Agencies & local SEO consultants mapping the companies behind a sector, town, or postcode
• Credit, compliance & KYC analysts checking charges, insolvency history, and beneficial ownership
• Recruiters & sourcing teams finding decision-makers (directors, secretaries, company secretaries) by name and role
• Data & ops engineers feeding CRM enrichment, dedupe, and onboarding pipelines
• Researchers & AI agents who need clean, structured company facts without cleanup

What you can do with it

• Just say who you want — write one sentence such as "active coffee shops in Leeds with websites, up to 25 companies" and the Actor works out the industry, location, company status, company age, how many to collect, and which extras to bring back. It prints every decision it made in the run log.
• Build a UK prospect list in seconds — describe the sector in plain English ("plumbing", "coffee shop", "office cleaning", "recruitment agency"), add a location, and get one clean row per company. No industry codes needed, and you can search several industries or several towns in one run.
• Start from a ready-made sector — 31 curated sectors (IT & software, trades, restaurants, logistics, beauty, care homes and more) that expand into the right industry codes for you.
• Find the decision-makers — pull every officer and director attached to those companies, with role, appointment and resignation dates, nationality, country of residence, occupation, and month/year of birth as published.
• Screen before you commit — pull registered charges (lenders, status, amounts of secured lending context) and insolvency cases (case type, winding-up and dissolution dates, practitioners) in the same run as everything else.
• Map ownership — collect the people and companies that own or control each company: nature of control, notified and ceased dates, legal form, registration number.
• Enrich rows with public contact details — website, email, phone, and social profiles are added to the same company row where they can be found. Nothing is ever dropped.
• Push straight into your stack — every row is saved to the dataset and can be delivered in real time to a CRM, Slack, Zapier, Make, n8n, or Google Sheets.

Features

Feature	What it does	Output (featureType)
⚡ Ideal customer brief (start here)	One sentence in, complete search setup out — industry, location, status, company age, size, and the extras worth collecting	company_search
🏭 Search by industry (own switch, on by default)	Plain-English industries in a row-per-industry list — "plumbing", "coffee shop", "solar panels" — each with its own location, matched against the official industry reference	company_search
🏭 Ready-made sectors	31 curated sectors you can type by name (IT & software, Trades & home services, Restaurants cafés & takeaways…) that expand into the right industry codes	company_search
🔎 Search by company name (own switch, off by default)	Live search by company name or number, with location, status, type, and incorporation/dissolution filters	company_search
✨ Full company details (per search section)	Adds nature of business, accounts dates, confirmation statement dates, and previous names to the same search row — switch it on for the industry list, the name list, or both	company_search (detailsFetched: true)
🏢 Company Details	Full registered profile for the companies you supply by number or link	company_details
👤 Officers & Directors	One row per officer appointment — current and former — with role, dates, nationality, residence, occupation, date of birth, correspondence address	officers
🧾 Filing History	One row per filed document with date, type, description, notes, page count, and a document link when available	filing_history
🏦 Charges & Insolvency	One row per registered charge and one row per insolvency case, with persons entitled, status, winding-up dates, and practitioners	charges, insolvency
🔎 Ownership	One row per registered owner or ownership statement, with nature of control bands	significant_control
🎯 Contact details (per search section)	Adds website, email, phone, and social profiles to company rows when they can be found — additive only, and switched on separately for the industry list, the name list, and the companies you look up	company_search, company_details
🔗 Scrape By URL	Structured company rows for company links you paste	scrape_by_url

Enrichment, not filtering: with Enrich with full company details on, every search result stays one row and gains the full registered profile in place (detailsFetched: true). No duplicate rows, no dropped companies — every company you discover always reaches your dataset, so your run cost stays predictable. Enrichment adds a little extra time per company.

How company search works (read this first)

The register stores companies under industry codes, and the codes are numeric — 43220 means plumbing, 62020 means IT consultancy. Nobody wants to memorise 731 of those. So this Actor gives you four ways in, and you can mix them.

0. Describe your ideal customer (customerBrief) — the fastest path of all

One sentence. The Actor reads it and sets up the rest:

"active plumbers in Leeds with websites, up to 25 companies"

  → industry: "plumbers"      → location: "Leeds"
  → company status: active    → up to 25 companies
  → also collecting: contact details

It understands company status (active, dissolved, in liquidation, including dissolved), a company age window (incorporated since 2020, from the last 3 years, new companies), how many you want (up to 100 companies), a location (in Leeds, near Bristol, across Scotland), and extras worth collecting (with websites, with directors, with charges, with ownership, full profiles). Whatever it decides is printed in the run log, and anything you also fill in yourself always wins over the brief — the brief only fills the gaps.

1. By industry in plain English (industrySearches) — the main list

Add a row per industry. Type the trade in your own words and the Actor matches it against the official published industry reference, then searches every industry that fits:

You type	It searches	Live example
plumbing	43220 Plumbing, heat and air-conditioning installation (+ related wholesale)	plumbing + Leeds + active
coffee shop	56101 Licenced restaurants, 56102 Unlicenced restaurants and cafes	coffee shop + Leeds + active
office cleaning	81210 General cleaning of buildings	commercial cleaners
software	62012 Business and domestic software development, 62011, 58290	software houses
solar panels	43220, 43210 Electrical installation	installers
IT support	62020 Information technology consultancy activities, 62030	managed-service providers

Each row carries its own location, so one run can cover plumbing in Leeds, coffee shops in Bristol, and roofers across Scotland. Each row also carries its own max companies, and the whole list is one dataset.

Every resolution is printed in the run log (Industry "plumbing" → 43220 Plumbing, heat and air-conditioning installation), and each company row records the words that found it in search_keyword. Nothing is a black box.

industryCodesPerKeyword (default 3) controls how many industries each row fans out into — a broad word like cleaning matches several, a precise one like daycare matches one. Each matched industry is its own search, so lower it for a tighter, cheaper list.

A word the reference has no industry for (charity, or a typo) is reported in the log and skipped rather than silently returning nothing.

2. By ready-made sector — type the sector name

31 curated sectors, each already mapped to the right industry codes. Type the name into the industry column instead of a trade:

IT & software	Online retail & e-commerce	Marketing & advertising
Design, media & photography	Construction & building	Trades & home services
Property & real estate	Recruitment & staffing	Accounting & bookkeeping
Legal services	Management consulting	Engineering & technical consulting
Architecture & planning	Environmental consulting & testing	Healthcare & medical practices
Care homes & social care	Childcare & nurseries	Restaurants, cafés & takeaways
Pubs, hotels & accommodation	Catering & events	Retail shops
Motor trade & vehicle repair	Freight, logistics & warehousing	Cleaning & facilities management
Security & investigation	Hairdressing, beauty & wellness	Fitness & sports facilities
Education & training	Travel agencies & tour operators	Veterinary services
Funeral services

Use this when you want a deliberate, clean sector list; use your own words when you want to explore.

3. By company name or number (searchKeywords) — when you know the target

Each entry is matched against company names, current and former. So monzo returns the Monzo companies, plumber returns companies called "Plumber…". This is a name lookup: the register does not search business activity in free text, which is exactly what the industry list is for. (Because former names are included, a name search can also surface a company that used to be called the thing you typed.)

Two switches, one dataset

Each way of finding companies has its own switch, so each section is complete and self-contained — everything you need for a method sits inside it:

Section	Switch	Default
🏭 Search by industry	enableIndustrySearch	on
🔎 Search by company name	enableNameSearch	off

• Industry only — the default. Name search is off, so the prefilled names below it are ignored.
• Name only — switch industry search off, then switch name search on.
• Both — turn both on. They run as separate searches and land in the same dataset, so you never lose results to an empty combination. One run can mix "industries I'm prospecting" and "competitors I'm tracking".

Each switch also carries its own max companies and its own full details and contact details toggles, so one run can build an outreach-ready industry list while collecting nothing extra on the names you already know.

If you leave a filled-in list behind a switch that is off, the run log says so ("Search by industry is switched off — your 1 industry row(s) were not searched") rather than silently ignoring it.

Then narrow it (searchLocation, searchStatus, and friends)

Setting any filter switches the run into the register's structured mode, which is how you go from "companies in this sector" to "companies in this sector, in this place, of this size, formed in this window":

To find	Use	Example
Companies in a place	searchLocation, or a row's own Location	Leeds, Manchester, Scotland
Only live companies	searchStatus	active
A legal form	searchCompanyType	ltd, plc, llp
Newly formed businesses	searchIncorporatedFrom / To	2024-01-01
A name pattern	searchKeywords + searchNameExcludes	marketing without HOLDINGS

Your industry rows and the filters combine — each row searches its industry in that row's location, with the shared filters applied. Every industry row needs no company name at all: "every active plumbing company in Leeds" is one row (plumbing + Leeds) and returns hundreds of real companies.

Using the brief and the lists together

Both can be filled in at once, and the rule is simple:

What you did	What the Actor does
Brief only	The brief supplies everything.
Brief and your own industry rows	Your rows run and the brief adds its own row. Identical searches are collapsed, so asking for plumbing in Leeds twice is still one search — you never get everything twice.
Brief and a setting you also filled in (status, location, dates, caps, extras)	Yours wins. The brief only fills the gaps, and says in the run log which parts it left alone.
Brief and company names	The brief's industry search runs, and your name searches run alongside it.
Brief and industry search switched off	The brief's industry is dropped, and the run log states it plainly instead of searching something you turned off.

Nothing is ever silently dropped: every decision, deferral, and addition is printed in the run log before collection starts.

Quick start (a real prospect list in seconds)

The Actor comes prefilled for an instant demo run:

1. Click Start — no configuration needed.
2. The default industry row is plumbing in Leeds, so you immediately get live plumbing companies registered in Leeds, 10 per matched industry.
3. Watch the dataset fill row-by-row in real time.

Want something else? Either write a sentence in 🎯 Describe your ideal customer ("active coffee shops in Leeds with websites"), or edit the industry row — a trade and a town is all it takes.

Want the companies you already know by name? Switch on 🔎 Search by company name — three example names are already filled in for you.

The company list is shared

The Companies to look up list (companyNumbers + companyUrls) feeds every company-level feature — full profile, Officers & Directors, Filing History, Charges & Insolvency, and Ownership. Add your companies once (for example 09446231, 00445790, SC012298) and every switch you turn on covers those companies. Companies discovered by the search are not added here automatically, so keep prospecting and lookups separate.

Full input reference

⚡ Start here — the ideal customer brief

Field	Type	Default	Notes
customerBrief	string	—	One sentence describing who you want, e.g. "active plumbers in Leeds with websites, up to 25 companies". Fills in industry, location, company status, incorporation dates, size, and the extras worth collecting — only where you have not set something yourself. Every decision it makes is printed in the run log.

Examples it understands:

Brief	What it sets up
active plumbers in Leeds with websites, up to 25 companies	plumbing + Leeds + active + 25 rows each + contact details
dissolved construction firms in Manchester	construction + Manchester + dissolved
software companies in Bristol incorporated since 2020, with directors	software + Bristol + active + incorporated from 2020 + officers
new marketing agencies in London from the last 3 years	marketing + London + active + incorporated in the last 3 years
coffee shops in Leeds	cafés and restaurants + Leeds + active
solar panel installers near Bristol	plumbing/heating and electrical installation + Bristol + active

🏭 Search by industry — one complete section

The recommended way to build a prospect list. The switch, the industry rows, and both enrich toggles all live here, so you never have to look anywhere else.

Field	Type	Default	Notes
enableIndustrySearch	boolean	true	The switch for this section.
industrySearches	list of rows	one demo row	Each row: industry (a trade in your own words, a ready-made sector name, or an industry code such as 43220), location (city, region, or part of the registered address — the whole UK if empty), and maxCompanies (this row's cap). Unmatched industries are reported in the log.
industryMaxResults	integer	10	Companies collected per industry row (1–500). A row can set its own.
industryFullDetails	boolean	false	Merge nature of business, accounts dates, confirmation statement dates, and previous names into each row found by industry.
industryContactDetails	boolean	false	Add website, email, phone, and social profiles to each row found by industry.
industryCodesPerKeyword	integer	3	Related industries per row — the most matching industries to use for each trade word you type (1–5). plumbing matches plumbing installation and plumbing wholesalers (2); cleaning matches 4; daycare matches 1. Each match is a separate search with its own full result set, so this also multiplies the rows a single row of your table returns. It does not apply to ready-made sector names (they always cover every industry they stand for) or to industry codes you type.

🔎 Search by company name — its own complete section

Off by default, with three well-known names prefilled so it works the moment you switch it on.

Field	Type	Default	Notes
enableNameSearch	boolean	false	The switch for this section.
searchKeywords	string list	["monzo", "brewdog", "deliveroo"]	Company names or company numbers (09446231). One search per entry, matched against current and former names.
nameMaxResults	integer	10	Companies collected per name or number (1–500).
nameFullDetails	boolean	false	Merge the full company profile into each row found by name.
nameContactDetails	boolean	false	Add contact details to each row found by name.

🎛️ Narrow the results

Filters are applied by the register itself, so they cost you nothing extra. Setting any filter switches the search into its structured mode, which also fills in status, company type, and industry codes on each row.

Field	Type	Default	Notes
searchLocation	string	—	Location for name searches and for any industry row that leaves its own location empty. e.g. Manchester, Leeds, Scotland.
searchStatus	select	any	active, dissolved, liquidation, administration, receivership, voluntary-arrangement, converted-closed, insolvency-proceedings.
searchCompanyType	select	any	ltd, plc, llp, and the other registered legal forms.
searchNameExcludes	string	—	Drop companies whose name contains this text, e.g. HOLDINGS.
searchIncorporatedFrom / searchIncorporatedTo	string	—	YYYY-MM-DD. Ideal for finding newly formed businesses.
searchDissolvedFrom / searchDissolvedTo	string	—	YYYY-MM-DD.

🏢 Companies to look up (companyNumbers / companyUrls)

Field	Type	Default	Notes
companyNumbers	string list	["09446231"]	UK company numbers, e.g. 09446231, 00445790, SC012298, NI024553. This one list feeds every company-level feature.
companyUrls	string list	[]	Company page links — the number is read from the link.
enableCompanyDetails	boolean	false	Full registered profile for each company in the list — nature of business, accounts and confirmation statement dates, previous names. One row per company.
lookupContactDetails	boolean	false	Add website, email, phone, and social profiles to each company in this list.

📄 Company records — Officers & Directors (enableOfficers, default off)

Field	Type	Default	Notes
officersMaxPerCompany	integer	10	Max officer rows per company (1–500).
officersActiveOnly	boolean	false	When off you also get former directors and secretaries — useful for role history and risk checks.

🧾 Company records — Filing History (enableFilingHistory, default off)

Field	Type	Default	Notes
filingHistoryMaxPerCompany	integer	10	Max filing rows per company (1–1000), newest first.

🏦 Company records — Charges & Insolvency (enableCharges, default off)

Field	Type	Default	Notes
chargesMaxPerCompany	integer	10	Max charge rows per company (1–500). Companies with no charges or insolvency simply produce no extra rows.

🔎 Company records — Ownership (enableSignificantControl, default off)

Field	Type	Default	Notes
significantControlMaxPerCompany	integer	10	Max ownership rows per company (1–500).

🌐 Delivery & connection

Field	Type	Default	Notes
webhookUrl	string	—	Optional. Every record is also POSTed here in real time.
webhookFormat	select	json	json (full record) or slack (Slack-ready message).

🔗 Scrape By URL (enableScrapeByUrl, default off)

Field	Type	Notes
scrapeUrls	string list	Company page links, e.g. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00445790.

Connection

Field	Type	Default	Notes
proxyConfiguration	proxy editor	Apify RESIDENTIAL, country GB	The register covers the United Kingdom only, so United Kingdom residential connections are used by default. Change this only if you need custom connection URLs.

Run volume

There is no separate global cap — you control volume where you set it. An industry row collects up to its own maxCompanies (or industryMaxResults, default 10) for each industry it resolves to, and each name collects up to nameMaxResults. Only switched-on sections are ever searched, so a switched-off list costs you nothing. One row of plumbing at the default industryCodesPerKeyword: 3 resolves to two industries, so it collects up to 20 companies; a row of restaurants resolves to a curated sector of four codes, so up to 40. The per-company caps for Officers, Filing History, Charges, and Ownership are added on top. The run budget is the sum of all of those, and the run log prints exactly how many searches are queued before it starts.

Output schema (field reference)

One dataset row per company, officer, filed document, charge, insolvency case, or owner. Filter views by featureType.

Company identity & firmographics

company_number · company_name · company_url (and url) · company_status · company_type · incorporated_on · incorporated_year · registered_office_address · country_of_registration (England and Wales / Scotland / Northern Ireland) · sic_codes · nature_of_business (code + description) · accounts (next_made_up_to, next_due, last_made_up_to) · confirmation_statement (next_statement_date, next_due, last_statement_date) · previous_names (name + period) · has_charges · has_insolvency · has_ownership

Search context

search_keyword — what discovered this company: the words you typed (plumbing, coffee shops), a ready-made sector name, a company name or number, or industry code 43220 · position — rank on the search it was found on · detailsFetched — true when the full profile was merged into this same row

Contact details (additive)

leadDetailsFetched · website · email, emails · phone, phones · socials

Officers

officer_id · officer_name · officer_role · officer_status (Active / Resigned) · officer_link · appointed_on · resigned_on · appointed_before · nationality · country_of_residence · occupation · date_of_birth (month/year as published) · correspondence_address · company_number, company_name, position

Filing history

filing_date · filing_type · filing_description · filing_annotations · filing_link · filing_pages · company_number, company_name, position

Charges

charge_code · charge_link · charge_created_on · charge_delivered_on · charge_status · charge_description · persons_entitled · total_charges · charges_outstanding · charges_satisfied · charges_part_satisfied · company_number, company_name, position

Insolvency

case_number · case_type · commencement_of_winding_up · dissolved_on · practitioners (role, name, address, appointed on, ceased to act) · company_number, company_name, position

Ownership

owner_name · owner_kind (individual / corporate-entity / statement) · owner_status · natures_of_control · notified_on · ceased_on · nationality · country_of_residence · date_of_birth · legal_form · legal_authority · place_registered · registration_number · correspondence_address · statement · total_owners

Direct link collection

pageType · company_number · company_name · company_status · company_type · incorporated_on · registered_office_address · sic_codes · previous_names

Webhook integration

Every record is always written to the dataset. Add webhookUrl and each record is additionally POSTed in real time — perfect for pushing new prospect rows straight into a CRM.

Slack format (webhookFormat: "slack") — paste a Slack Incoming Webhook URL; messages render like:

:office: *TESCO PLC (00445790)*
*Type:* company_search  •  *Company number:* 00445790  •  *Incorporated:* 27 November 1947  •  *Address:* Tesco House, Shire Park, Kestrel Way, Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom, AL7 1GA
<https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00445790|Open on the register>

JSON format (webhookFormat: "json") — the full record object, one POST per row. Works with Discord (via /webhooks), Zapier, Make, n8n, a CRM, or your own enrichment pipeline:

{
  "featureType": "company_search",
  "company_number": "09446231",
  "company_name": "MONZO BANK LIMITED",
  "company_status": "Active",
  "company_type": "Private limited company",
  "incorporated_on": "18 February 2015",
  "registered_office_address": "Broadwalk House, 5 Appold Street, London, United Kingdom, EC2A 2AG",
  "sic_codes": ["64191"],
  "search_keyword": "monzo",
  "detailsFetched": false,
  "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09446231",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-29T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Webhook delivery is best-effort: a slow or failing webhook URL never blocks or breaks the run or the dataset writes.

Using with AI agents (MCP)

The Actor works great through the Apify MCP server with Claude Desktop, Cursor, LangChain, or any MCP client:

1. In your MCP client config, add the Apify MCP server with your APIFY_TOKEN.
2. Expose this Actor as a tool (Actor ID: ~your-username/companies-house-real-time-data).
3. Ask natural-language questions like:
   • "Find 25 active software companies registered in Manchester since 2022, then list their directors."
   • "Which of these 5 companies have registered charges or insolvency cases, and who owns them?"
   • "Build a prospect list of marketing agencies in Bristol with their websites and phone numbers."

The Actor returns clean, structured rows — no cleanup needed for LLM pipelines.

Free-tier limits (paid-only features)

Plan	Behavior
Free	Capped at 2 results per run (default). The run finishes cleanly with a clear log message — this is a policy limit, not an error.
Any paid plan (Bronze+)	No caps — full output.

Paying users are detected automatically from the platform run context — nothing to configure per run.

Pricing model

This Actor uses Pay-Per-Event (PPE): you are charged one result event per dataset row saved. Set a max spend per run and, when your limit is reached, the Actor stops gracefully, writes its summary, and exits cleanly without errors.

FAQ

Do I need my own connections? No. The Actor ships preconfigured for Apify Residential with United Kingdom country targeting, which is what the register covers, and the residential charge is included in its pricing. Most users should leave the default.

How do I find companies by industry? Add a row in Search by industry with the trade in your own words — plumbing, coffee shop, software, office cleaning, logistics — plus a location. Or type one of the 31 ready-made sector names in the same place. You never need to know an industry code, and you can add as many rows as you like to cover several industries or several towns.

What is the one-sentence brief for? It saves you setting anything up. Write "active plumbers in Leeds with websites, up to 25 companies" and the Actor works out the industry, location, status, company age, size, and extras, then prints what it decided in the run log. If you also fill a setting in yourself, yours always wins — the brief only fills the gaps.

I used the brief and still filled in the sections below. Which one wins? Both are used, without surprises. Settings you filled in (status, location, dates, company counts, extras) beat the brief, and the log says what the brief left alone. For industries, your rows run and the brief adds its own row rather than replacing anything — and if you asked for the same thing twice, the duplicate search is collapsed so you never get the same company twice.

Can I search by industry and by company name in the same run? Yes — there is one switch for company discovery, and the industry list and the name box are two ways in. They run as separate searches and land in the same dataset, so you can prospect a sector and track named competitors at the same time.

Why did my free run stop at 2 items? That's the free-plan cap described above — it applies to every Apify Actor on the free plan. Upgrade to any paid Apify plan and the cap disappears automatically; no code or config change needed.

How fresh is the data? Every run collects live data at the moment you press Start. The register is updated continuously as companies file, so scheduling repeat runs on a watchlist of company numbers is the recommended pattern for change monitoring.

Will I get rate-limited or blocked? The Actor paces its work, reuses a warmed session, and routes through country-targeted residential connections — the same safeguards used at large scale. Keep the default concurrency and it just works.

What does "Enrich with full company details" cost me in time? It adds a little extra time per company to fill in nature of business, accounts dates, and previous names in the same row. With it off you get fast cards with name, number, address, and incorporation date. Either way, every discovered company is saved — companies are never filtered out.

How accurate are the contact details? They are best-effort and only ever added: a company row is exported whether or not a website, email, phone, or social profile could be found. Companies whose details are not publicly discoverable simply come back with those fields empty.

Does the Actor cover companies outside the UK? No — it covers the United Kingdom register only (England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland). That is why United Kingdom connections are the default.

Is any raw source payload included? No — rows contain only the clean, structured fields documented above. There is no raw-data option and no internal payload dumps in webhooks.

Does the run timeout? Runs support up to 10,000 seconds (about 2.7 hours) per run, which covers large multi-feature exports. For bigger volumes, run multiple scheduled passes with smaller per-section limits.

Disclaimer

This Actor is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Companies House. It provides access to publicly available company register information for research and business intelligence. Respect the register's terms of use when using collected data.

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Built for UK lead generation, due diligence, and company research. 🇬🇧